All the proposed wind projects in Middlesex County (above) have now been approved and will be under construction, if they aren’t’ already. That’s over 100 wind turbines. If you want to see what it look like, check these pictures out, or come out and see for yourself.

Sarnia Lambton Independent
NextEra Energy is trying to ease fears about the fate of a pair of bald eagles near Parkhill. Middlesex Lambton Wind Action Group is holding a “celebration” near the nest on Kerwood Road May 25 to bring awareness to the fact the eagles will be living within 187 meters of a substation and 800 meters of two wind turbines if the company goes ahead with its plans for the Bornish Wind project.

Muriel Blair of the Middlesex Lambton group is concerned. “It will displace the eagles, even the construction itself will displace them,” she says. “It’s the noise, it’s the vibration that displaces them.”

NextEra raised the ire of landowners, First Nations, environmentalist and anti-turbine activists this winter when it cut down an eagles nest in Haldimand County to make way for a project. Blair is worried that could happen again if the public isn’t aware of the birds, so the get-together was planned to raise awareness. Read article

Yesterday was a beautiful day at the Bald Eagle Celebration, for so many reasons. But at the very end of the day, as about a dozen of of us were packing up, someone yelled, “Hey, look up!”. One of the Bornish Eagles was flying overhead – he circled around us for about a minute, and then took off in the direction of the proposed NextEra Bornish wind project. Some things you just can’t put words to…. this was one of them.

reNews
An anti-wind group has appealed NextEra Energy Canada’s 60MW Bluewater wind project in Ontario. The Middlesex-Lambton Wind Action Group has asked the provincial environmental review tribunal to revoke a renewable energy approval granted in April. The opposition group claims the 40-turbine wind farm will cause serious harm to human health. Preliminary hearings will be held 4 and 28 of June. A full hearing is set for 2 July.

The Ontario Energy Board is conducting a written hearing for NextEra’s application to build interconnection facilities, which include a 23-kilometer 115kV transmission line. In the meantime, the Florida-based developer has filed suit seeking to overturn new bylaws enacted by Bluewater council. Developers would have to pay C$14,000 per turbine plus a refundable security deposit totaling C$420,000 per turbine to cover decommissioning and potential health and property damages and legal fees. Another appeal is underway against NextEra’s 72.9MW Bornish proposal. The tribunal has yet to set hearing dates. Both wind farms are designed with GE 1.6-100 turbines

Re News
Opponents have appealed NextEra Energy Canada’s 72.9MW Bornish wind project in southwestern Ontario. The developer last month received renewable energy approval (REA) by the Environment Ministry, as reported in reNews. The Municipality of North Middlesex and an individual have asked the Environmental Review Tribunal to revoke the REA.

The appellants claim the wind farm will cause serious harm to human health. They also allege serious and irreversible harm to plant and animal life, listing at-risk species such as the bald eagle, red-headed woodpecker and tundra swan. The tribunal has yet to set any hearing dates. Read article

By Heather Wright, Sarnia this Week
LAMBTON COUNTY – Wind activists say a transmission line hearing may be best way to stop a wind energy center north of Arkona. NextEra received approval for the Bornish Wind Energy center, a 45-turbine project just northeast of Arkona from the Ministry of the Environment recently. Esther Wrightman of Middlesex Lambton Wind Concerns has been among the people fighting the project. She’s frustrated. Wrightman saying looking at the Environmental Registry confirms her suspicion that the Ministry of the Environment simply rubber stamps wind projects. Wrightman says the registry on the Bornish project uses the name of another wind project in Eastern Ontario telling her the responses are not original.

“These are projects that are going to affect people’s lives and it seems that it’s just a matter of copy and pasting approval lines in it from one to another,” says Wrightman. “The MOE has never denied a project” she adds. “The system is broken…you don’t have a government agency that can help…you feel quite deserted at the end of the day.” Read article

NexTerror cut down one eagle nest in Ontario already this year, and are eying up another at the Bornish project that was just approved last week.
Please mark your calendar to join the Save the Bornish Eagles Gathering:

“If the Company determines that it must deviate from either the Environmental Effects Monitoring Plan, the Natural Heritage Assessment and Environmental Impact Study, the Natural Heritage Assessment – Addendum Report or the Natural Heritage Assessment – Addendum II Report, described in Condition K1, the Company shall contact the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Director, prior to making any changes to either of these documents, and follow any directions provided.”

A Renewable Energy Approval (REA) has been issued to Bornish Wind LP (NextEra Energy) to engage in a renewable energy project in respect of a Class 4 wind facility consisting of the construction, installation, operation, use and retiring of up to 45 turbines, rated at 1.6 MW generating output capacity, with a total name plate capacity of 72.9 MW. The wind facility will be connected to Hydro One’s distribution system.

This Class 4 wind facility, known as the Bornish Wind Energy Centre, consists of areas required for the wind facility components, as well as for the interconnection route. The wind facility will be is located in the Municipality of North Middlesex in Middlesex County.

The REA requires the proponent to construct, install, operate, use and retire the facility in accordance with specific terms and conditions.

The terms and conditions, as summarised below, require the proponent to:

construct and install the facility within 3 years of the date of the approval,

construct and install the facility in accordance with the documentation considered for the issuance of this approval,

I spy with my little eye something that will NEVER AGAIN be removed by a wind developer in Ontario. An eagle nest. Over my dead body, NexTerror.

When the community labels Nextera “NexTerror” and “NextError”, it isn’t for just any old reason. Perhaps parody is ingrained in Canadians, and this is why Nextera has earned itself yet another new name: NESTerror. We watched the take down of the eagle’s nest in Haldimand, and literally vowed never again.

So this weekend some pictures of two bald eaglea and their nest were sent to me by a local resident. This nest is in the Nextera Bornish Wind Project (@ Kerwood Rd & Elginfield Rd), close to wind turbines (634m), and very close (187m) to the massive switchyard for the Bornish, Adelaide, Jericho and Cedar Point Wind Projects— a total of 221 turbines for Middlesex and Lambton counties. The Bornish and Adelaide projects are scheduled to be approved by the MOE this month.

The Haldimand nest destruction was not a ‘one-off’, I’m sure of that, even though Nextera rep Tom Bird told us, “I absolutely don’t want to do that again.” Not even a month after they took down the nest in Haldimand county, they were eying up one in Middlesex county.

Looking through Nextera’s website I came across these recent addendums from February, 2013:

By Paul Morden, London Free Press
Middlesex County anti-wind turbine activist Esther Wrightman says she’s not giving in to a cease and desist warning from lawyers working for NextEra Energy Canada. A letter, dated March 20, was sent to Wrightman calling on her to remove YouTube videos and wind resistance website postings because of company logos altered to read “NEXTerror” and “Nextterror Bullies Canada Inc.”

“Our request is simply to not use the corporation’s registered, trademarked logo in a manner that is defamatory,” NextEra spokesperson Josie Hernandez said in an email. Hernandez said company officials attempted to contact Wrightman personally to resolve the issue before the letter from the lawyers was sent. Wrightman said phone calls where made to her home but she never spoke directly to those company representatives. “We aren’t trying to limit debate, which is clear from our letter, but we have rights in our logo that are entitled to protection under the law,” Hernandez said.

The letter from the lawyers to Wrightman mention in particular use of “NEXTerror” in a video shot in January as crews destroyed a bald eagle nest on the site of NextEra’s Summerhaven wind project in Haldimand. The tree holding the nest came down with the permission of Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources. The letter from the lawyers asks Wrightman to remove that video – as well as a second one interviewing company officials about the nest – from YouTube by March 22. Read article

Heather Wright, Sarnia Lambton Independent
Esther Wrightman says she’s not about to be silenced in her fight against wind turbines in her community. Wrightman, a member of Middlesex Lambton Wind Action Group, recently received a Cease and Desist order from NextEra Energy after altering the company’s logo to make it read Next-terror and NextError on signs and videos.

“This use of the NextEra logo is unsanctioned, in violation of NextEra’s intellectual property rights and defamatory, especially in conjunction with the video makers’ disparaging comments about NextEra,” Awanish Sinha of McCarthy Tetrault law firm in Toronto writes to Wrightman. “While NextEra recognizes your right to object to its projects and to express your opinions regarding wind power and provincial policies regarding green energy, you do not have a right to utilize its name and logo in any manner or to defame the company.” Sinha writes company officials tried a half dozen times to talk to the activist by phone about their concerns, but weren’t able to reach her. When Wrightman added NextTerror Bullies Canada Inc. to a blog, Sinha says the company felt it had to take legal action. “The latest manipulation of NextEra’s logo has compelled NextEra to take this action and stop this escalating abuse.”

The company told Wrightman to remove all uses of the alter logos on the Middlesex Lambton Wind Action Group and Ontario Wind Resistance blogs. It also calls for two videos – one of company workers removing a bald eagle’s nest which was in the way of a new project in Haldimand County. Wrightman says that video and another of a company official telling protestors the Ministry of the Environment gave permission for the nest to be cut, have been viewed thousands of times and have shocked people. “I really believe it has more to do with them wanting the eagle nest video down,” she says. Wrightman believes the letter is simply a threat that the company uses with people who don’t agree with their projects. Read article

I am quite upset to see incorrect and confusing numbers reported in the media as to how many and how close wind turbines are to be from the schools in Lambton County. It is not the media’s fault.

Nextera, Suncor: I have reviewed wind project noise documents for 4 years – I should be competent in it by now. But I find I am tearing my hair out reviewing the documents, trying to find the exact noise, and distances turbines are to the schools in your projects.

Currently, my frustration stems from:

The Bosanquet elementary school does not even have a Receptor ID on the project draft map.

The hundreds of receptor ID’s are not numerically ordered in the noise chart – and I honestly can’t even find the school ID (or in this case, it’s neighbour’s, because it doesn’t have an ID).

At the wind developer meetings, the schools are not even identified on the large maps. Security was called over when I wrote “school” on the map location for others to be able to see. How’s THAT for informing the public?? No wonder the media doesn’t know the true numbers… Read the rest of this entry →

Thank you for the letter dated March 20, 2013 that was dropped between my doors the other day.

The reason I (and “we” the communities in rural Ontario) are referring to your client Nextera as “Nexterror”, is that we feel it is “fair comment” considering this companies actions and behaviour in the past and present in our communities.

We believe that Nextera creates “errors” and “terrors” in our community, and that these facts are well known to the public and therefore these facts are notorious.

At the same time, we have published these facts on our website: Ontario Wind Resistance. They include:

Terror:
Eagle Nest/ Wildlife destruction

-The “First Video” clearly shows the destruction of an eagles nest.
-The “Second Video” shows Tom Bird of Nextera saying, “The authorization we got from the ministry of natural resources was to destroy this nest”.

Clearly this is terrorizing the community when 18 men with chainsaws and bulldozers descend on, and proceed to cut down an active eagles nest. Even those in favour of turbines are horrified by this despicable action.

You have no right to ask that these movies be removed, and in fact you did not give a single reason as to why you thought the “Second Video” should be removed, as “Nexterror” does not appear on it anywhere. It seems that Nextera would just like to bury this incident and remove the evidence from Youtube.

Below are some of the numerous reports published on Nextera’s destruction of the eagle nest and other wildlife and their habitats:

Sarnia Lambton Independent
NextEra Energy is facing stiff opposition to its transmission plan. Dozens of people, organizations, and businesses have filed to be interveners at an Ontario Energy Board Hearing on the transmission line project to serve three of NextEra’s projects including the Jericho Wind Energy project in Lambton Shores.

The company plans to erect 100 foot poles over 30 km along roads in Middlesex County to carry the power generated by the wind projects near Strathroy and Lambton Shores. But some neighbours are not pleased. The OEB allowed 10 days for people to register to take part in the hearing to approve the plan, at least 15 landowners and nine other organizations want a say in the hearing.

Middlesex County, Adelaide Township and North Middlesex want to be involved in the hearing. So does Hydro One, the Independent Electric System Operator, and Entegrus Transmission Lines. The Middlesex Lambton Wind Action Group – a citizens group which has been objecting to the industrial wind projects in the area – also wants a say. Read article

Terry Heffernan, Special to the Times-Advocate
GRAND BEND — About 70 people were in attendance at a protest Sunday of the planned installation of wind turbines in or around the Thedford Bog near the Lambton County Museum.

At issue is the tundra swans that use the bog to rest and feed on their way from their wintering grounds in Chesapeake Bay to the Arctic shores breeding grounds. Protesters believe that building turbines in the bog will disrupt the flight path of the swans and they will disappear from the area and never return as long as the turbines are in place.

Before the turbines get final approval, members of the Trees Not Turbines on Ontario’s West Coast, Ontario Wind Resistance, Middlesex Lambton Wind Action Group, WAIT Plympton-Wyoming and Wind Concerns Ontario are attempting to convince NextEra to stop the turbine invasion in the area. Read article

By Debora Van Brenk, The London Free PressGet ready for the next tilt in Southwestern Ontario’s transformation into the province’s wind-energy hotbed: 10-storey-high poles to help collect all that power. Debora Van Brenk looks at the early static one wind energy giant’s plans are creating in Middlesex County.

A wind energy giant’s plan to put up 10-storey poles and high-voltage wires along Middlesex County roads is sparking energetic attention. The Ontario Energy Board will consider the application by NextEra Energy Canada to put up poles from its proposed three wind farms along about 30 km of Middlesex roads north and northwest of Strathroy. The county and two residents want permission to speak at a hearing — no date set yet — and more than 24 others have asked to be observers.

The county wants to make sure any poles on municipal rights-of-way don’t interfere with existing or planned infrastructure such as bridges, utilities or drainage ditches, Middlesex engineer Chris Traini. “Anything that would be of public use to the residents should take precedence over transmission poles,” he said.

The county is obligated to share its rights-of-way with utilities, and Traini said he wants to make sure residents’ interests are protected. Council has also expressed concerns about the possible effect on drivers of roadway sign and pole clutter. Traini said the county also wants the energy board to help draw lines of clear responsibility for maintenance and safety of the lines and poles. Read article

Please read through this letter from Nextera and the attached Notice of Application to the Ontario Energy Board. This is important for anyone in the Adelaide, Bornish, Jericho and Cedar Wind Point Projects.

If you haven’t filed as an ‘Observer’ or ‘Intervener’ in this hearing, please do so now (before March 24 if possible).

This is the OEB hearing on the 115kV transmission lines on 100′ poles along Kerwood and Elginfield/Nairn Rd AND the substations and switching stations. There are MANY concerns to be raised on this development – make sure your voice is heard and you are involved.

Heather Wright, Sarnia-Lambton Independent
Muriel Allingham is questioning why the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority would allow wind energy companies to survey sensitive areas such as Rock Glen Conservation Area. Documents released by the authority released to Allingham, a member of Middlesex Lambton Wind Action, show a company called CanAcre, working for NextEra Energy on the Goshen and Jericho projects in Lambton and Middlesex, signed an agreement with the ABCA to have access to conservation land for field studies. Rock Glen Conservation Area in Arkona was among the nine tracts of land surveyed.

Conservation Authority General Manager Tom Proutt says the agreements were signed two-years ago, before there was wide-spread concern for the project. He says the company offered to survey the land and do an inventory of the plants and wildlife. “The agreements that wind energy companies had asked us for were part of their environmental studies they were doing,” says Proutt. “They were looking at our properties in terms of what was there and that was information that we would find useful because we don’t have the time or money to inventory our lands.”

But Allingham says the conservation authority should have known the companies were looking to use the lands – a use she says would not be appropriate. “Conservation lands are just that and it (wind energy projects) displaces wildlife and their mandate is to protect land and wildlife. Read article

Chris Montanini, Londoner
Two subsidiaries of NextEra Energy Canada have applied to the Ontario Energy Board for leave to construct electricity transmission facilities for their proposed wind farm projects in Middlesex County. The applications were submitted to the OEB Feb. 8 and in anticipation of an upcoming hearing to allow the public and other agencies to express interest, county councillors at their bi-monthly meeting Feb. 19 in London gave Middlesex County staff permission to intervene on their behalf.

Chris Traini, a Middlesex County engineer, said the procedure will be “fairly standard” for electricity infrastructure on county property. “We want to go to the (OEB) to make sure they know (NextEra) has to follow the normal county bylaws and policies,” Traini said. “So they’ll need work permits, entrance permits, moving permits, the same as anyone else who would install infrastructure on a county road.”

Traini said they will also need to craft a Road User Agreement outlining the terms that will allow NextEra to install infrastructure on county roads. The applications include transmission lines within the right of ways of Kerwood Road, Nairn Road and Elginfield Road. “We’re trying to put ourselves in position so we don’t have additional costs to do our normal jobs (like road maintenance and construction) and therefore increase the burden to tax payers because of this infrastructure,” Traini said. “We ask for that because we don’t have detailed engineering drawing until they actually go to construction which will be a few months after approval is given.”

It typically takes the OEB around 30 days from the date an application is submitted to announce a hearing, Traini said. Read article

John Fund, National Review
President Obama likes to talk about making sure “the biggest corporations pay their fair share.” Treasury secretary Tim Geithner calls for tax reform to close loopholes and subsidies. Budget hawks say federal spending must be curbed. Congress and federal environmental regulators claim they are doing everything they can to save endangered species. By doing nothing and waiting for December 31 to pass, all of those folks could strike a blow in support of each of these policies. All they have to do is let the federal production tax credit (PTC) for wind energy expire on schedule this coming Monday.

Begun 20 years ago to spur the construction of wind-energy facilities that could compete with conventional fossil-fuel power plants, the tax credit gives wind an advantage over all other energy producers. But it has mostly benefited conventional nuclear and fossil-fuel-fired electricity producers. The biggest user of the tax credit is Florida-based NextEra Energy, the nation’s eighth-largest power producer. Through skillful manipulation of the credits, NextEra from 2005 to 2009 “paid just $88 million in taxes on earnings of nearly $7 billion,” Businessweek reports. That’s a tax rate of just 1.25 percent over that period, when the statutory rate is 35 percent. Read article

by Harvey Wrightman
The Liberal party, engaged in a collective effort of navel-gazing, is puzzled as to why rural residents have such irrational fear of the great green future planned for them – all the prospective leadership candidates affirm that the wind energy program will proceed as planned.

One of the newest wrinkles to the wind program is now coming to light. The 300 or so wind turbines planned for north east Lambton, north west Middlesex and southern Huron Counties require transmission lines to get to Hydro’s 500kv main line some 40 km away. The wind companies, in their typical corporate arrogance, planned their projects first, leaving transmission details for later, never anticipating that things here would be any different than they are in Kansas or Missouri where you send out your “landmen” (that’s what this particular breed of slime is called) to offer a few dollars for the easements required – and the poles are up before anyone even knows about it. Almost everything on private land so there are no hassles with municipal or State bureaucrats. So, we can do the same thing here, right? – Well, not exactly. Read the rest of this entry →

by Heather Wright, Sarnia This Week
Middlesex Lambton Wind Action is closely watching talks between Middlesex County and NextEra Energy. NextEra has several wind projects in Middlesex and Lambton County. It’s planning to build transmission lines to carry the energy created by the turbines in southern Ontario and it wants to build them on municipal and county right of ways.

NextEra recently went to Middlesex County Council to talk about the plan. Draft documents from the Jericho project, with 92 turbines in Lambton Shores and Warwick, show the transmission lines would also stretch into Lambton County. Lambton County Councilors recently gave county staff authority to negotiate with wind energy companies about access to county right of ways.

Esther Wrightman of Middlesex Lambton Wind Action says NextEra wants to build a separate line of polls to carry the energy being produced because Hydro One would not allow NextEra’s lines on their poles. In some areas, that could mean Hydro One poles on one side of the road and NextEra’s on the other.

“A good portion of our county roads will have poles on each side of the road,” she says. “You just double the chance of hitting a pole (in an accident) by putting poles on the other side of the road, too.” Middlesex County engineers have asked NextEra to come back to the county with plans from an engineer. Wrightman is pleased, saying the transmission lines will have a devastating effect on the landscape of rural Ontario.

“They will be running by people’s homes, near schools; it is very invasive, it is going to drastically change the community.” She’s also concerned about the infrastructure left behind “white elephants with transmission lines running down your road” she calls them, should the energy companies pull the turbines out of service. Read the rest of this entry →

In Middlesex County, Nextera has two wind projects up for final public comment: Adelaide and Bornish, totaling 83 turbines, for now. The company’s plan is to connect these two projects, as well as the 92 turbine Nextera Jericho and 62 Suncor Cedar Point projects, with one massive transmission line. Problem is, the route isn’t figured out yet. Remember, the public is supposed to be filing their final comments right now on complete project documents, and yet this very significant piece of information isn’t available for the public to comment on, or even view.

The map (above right) shows a ‘proposed’ route – this is all the public, the county, the townships and the Ministry of Environment are supposed to know right now. In fact, this route has not been secured. Landowners refused to sign easements; Hydro Ones said ‘no’ to sharing their poles. And now Nextera is planning to ask Middlesex County council to allow the company to erect their own 90’ poles with 115kv lines on the other side of the county’s road; hoping that council will ignore the significant safety risk that this will pose to regular travelers by doubling the number of hydro poles on county road allowance.

But this isn’t the whole story. Nextera has a plan “C”, lovingly called the “Back Country” route. The locals started cluing into this plan when residents were being approached by CanAcre landmen to sign 100′ transmission easements through the back of their lots— in some cases through mature, hard maple bush. At the final public meeting when company representatives were asked about this route, they twisted away from saying it was so, until they were certain that we were not going to tolerate being lied to. One rep was asked: if they were to use this route, would they not have to have another public meeting to unveil this new plan? Yes, he said they would. But no new meeting has taken place, so we just assumed they were using one of the other routes….until we saw these documents at the MOE office in London (they were only placed on the company’s website 3 days ago, after complaints to the MOE were made). Take a look at pg.11 and on – these are personal notes that the CanAcre landmen took while trying to sign-up the ‘Back Country’ land. Why was this sent to the MOE? Do they intend to still use this route? It would appear that that would still be a big possibility as to this day, CanAcre is still making their rounds in the community, trying to get the land signed that they need.

What would this ‘Back Country’ route look like? Nextera of course does not have a map available, but residents were able to piece it together by basically following the plow lines in the fields and assembling the map below. The Red line is the “Back country” and the Yellow is the current Proposed Line. Be sure to follow those lines, right through the woodlot— and remember this is supposed to be ‘green energy’.

Does it not fly in the face of reason that council and the public are only now being shown all the various transmission routes that this company is contemplating? We are in the middle of the final 30 day comment periods for both the Bornish and Adelaide projects – this is the last time the Ministry of Environment allows us to comment on these projects. If the MOE has truly reviewed all of Nextera’s Bornish and Adelaide Project Documents, and deemed them complete so that we could review them – does it not seem like they may be missing a large piece of the puzzle, of WHERE the transmission lines are going? We know of three different transmission routes: on Hydro One’s poles, on the other side of the county road, and the ‘back country route’ – all of which are still being actively pursued by the wind company. We are being asked to comment on incomplete and unavailable information… or perhaps they do not wish to have the public’s comments and that is why we are left out of the decision making.